hi my name is Gunnar and im from iceland i have been searching for the ships from qp-13 convoy that entered a minefield in the west of iceland ive been trying to find pictures of the ships so far i have just found niger and massamar and if anyone know in what order the ships sailed into the minefield is there any description of these events from survivors im asking this couse im intrested to make a documentary about theese tragic events all help would be preciated thanks Gunnar

hi guys its been a while sines i was here last time but the info you guys gave helped a lot. i have been looking really hard for any manifests about what cargo was in any of the ships that went down all help would be apreciated thanks Gunnar

I have a few old reference books on the convoys. What I have found is:

Merchant Ships sunk were Hybert (US), Massmar (US), Exterminator (Panamanian), Rodina (Russian), Heffron (US), John Randolph (US). The Exterminator was salvaged in 1943, and the forepart of the John Randolph was also salvaged after the war. From what I have, there were no dead from these ships (miracle!).

The convoy divided off Iceland with 16 going to Loch Ewe and the other 19, escorted by NIGER, Hussar a corvette and two trawlers, heading around the north coast of Iceland to Reykjavik. At 1900 the convoy was approaching the north-west coast of Iceland in five columns. The weather was bad; visibility was under one mile, rough seas and a Force 8 wind from the north-east. No sighting had been taken since 2/7 and the convoy's position, calculated by dead reckoning, was in doubt. At 1910 NIGER's Senior Officer (Commander Antony J Cubison) went on ahead in order to obtain a navigational fix and suggested to the Commodore that the convoy be reduced from five to two columns to pass between the coast at Straumness and a British minefield to the north west of Iceland.. At 2100 NIGER, which had gone ahead looking for land, leaving Hussar in between as a visual link with the convoy, sighted what she believed to be the North Cape and ordered a course alteration for the convoy. Unfortunately, what NIGER had sighted was an iceberg and the alteration took the convoy into the minefield. From soundings he estimated that the North Cape of Iceland had been passed and ordered a south-west course to try to make a landfall. Cautiously making his way through the mist and cloud he suddenly saw what appeared to be a steep cliff looming up in the murk, which he thought must be the North Cape after all. It seemed that the convoy had altered course too soon and if they maintained the direction they would be into the coastline. To correct this, Cubison immediately signalled the convoy back on to a west course. Hardly had the convoy swung back onto the new course when a clearance in the weather showed that what had been taken for a cliff was in fact a large iceberg. Just before 2240 NIGER realised the mistake and signalled the Commodore to change course but it was too late and at 2240 NIGER hit a mine and blew up in position 66.55N, 22.20W. NIGER sank very quickly. With her bottom torn out and her back broken she lasted but a few minutes. As she settled into the Arctic sea there was a muffled roar as her boilers exploded. And then, maintaining her level with the water, she slowly heeled over onto her side, her mast and funnel dipping despairingly into a surface of burning oil gushing from her tanks. For a moment the keel showed wet black against the turbulent sea and then in a rush of vomiting bubbles she was gone. She took with her the commanding officer, Commander Cubison, 80 officers and crew, and 39 passengers, survivors from HMS Edinburgh. Fog further reduced visibility to 500 yards, and the Merchant Ships thought a U Boat attack or Surface Raider attack was in progress. Four Merchant Ships were sunk by mines, and two more seriously damaged. The escorts displayed conspicuous gallantry in entering and remaining in the minefield to rescue the survivors. ROSLYS, whose Commanding Officer had appreciated that his ship was in the minefield remained in it for six and a half hours while she rescued 179 survivors. Miraculously, two of the passengers from Edinburgh survived NIGER's sinking. Finally a definite shore fix was obtained by Hussar and the convoy reached Reykjavik on 7/7. The Commanding Officer, eight officers and 140 ratings perished when NIGER sank; the large casualty list is probably explained by the fact that the ship was carrying naval passengers home from North Russia including 39 survivors from HMS Edinburgh.

the thing im mostly looking for is in what order the ship sank thren i can try to identify the ships by location right now we have just some wrescks in a large area but we are having hard time identifying wish is wich there must be some more detailed description of events from survivors than just this thanks Gunnar

What I posted yesterday from the U.S. Navy Chronology of WWII-1942-July 5th seems to show the chronological order in which the ships were sunk. You may not have read it before your most recent posting. If not, I suggest you do so.

I found a few rather bad photos of a few of the ships on the www.armed-guard.org web site. If you haven't found these, let me know and I'll send them to you.

I also found additional references to the convoy that indicate my earlier comment about there being no loss of life was incorrect. My original comments were based on information in Hague's book on Convoys. A second source says the following regarding casualties:

Hybert = no loss Massmar = 17 crew, 23 from SS Alamar, and 9 Armed Guard lost (the Massmar was carrying survivors of the Alamar, which was sunk earlier on May 27, 1942) Exterminator = no loss Heffron = 1 crew lost John Randolph = 5 crew lost

The losses on the Massmar may be incorrect, as yet other sources say the 23 survivors of the Alamar survived the Massmar sinking. Frustrating part of these searches - too many conflicting stories!

Here is the official US Navy version of what happened to Convoy QP13 according to the Official Chronology of the U. S. Navy in World War II-1942:

Convoy QP 13, groping its way through poor visibility conditions, blunders into a British minefield in Denmark Strait. U.S. freighter Richard Henry Lee is damaged but suffers no casualties among her 34-man crew and 9-man Armed Guard. Freighter Massmar fouls two mines and sinks; 17 of the ship's 36-man crew, and 5 of her 9-man Armed Guard, perish, as do 26 (22 merchant seamen and four Armed Guard sailors) of the 45 passengers she is carrying--survivors of the freighter Alamar (sunk in convoy PQ 16). Free French corvette Roselys rescues survivors. Freighter Hybert fouls a mine and is abandoned; as all hands (39-man crew, 11-man Armed Guard, and 26 passengers from the sunken Syros) abandon ship, the merchantman drifts into a second mine. British armed trawler HMS Lady Madeleine and Roselys rescue the survivors. Freighter John Randolph fouls two mines and breaks in two; 5 of the 38-man crew perish in the incident, but none of the 12 passengers or the 12-man Armed Guard are lost. Other ships in QP 13 rescue the survivors. The ship's bow section is recovered and salvaged, the stern section sinks. Freighter Heffron fouls two mines and is abandoned; one crewman dies in the abandonment. Roselys rescues the 36 crewmen, two Navy signalmen and 23 passengers. Heffron sinks very early the next morning.

There is somewhat of a mystery surrounding the Russian ship Rodina. A writer named Lippman who authored a history of 'WWII 55 years later' stated that the Rodina carried family members of Russian diplomats stationed in Britain. If that is true, then why didn't the Rodina depart earlier with that section of the convoy bound for Loch Ewe rather than travel on to Iceland with the American ships? Maybe the family members were going to get off the ship in Iceland and the Rodina was going to continue on to the US to pick up cargo. In any case, Russia has more recently sent a team to Iceland to investigate the sunken wrecks. I wonder how many people from the Rodina were killed?

yes i have knowledge of this team i have heard that only 8 persons survived from rodina my guess is that theese diplomats were running away from russia to usa couse the invation into russia was in late june

Because the Rodina is a Russian ship, the US records would typically not have much, if any detail. I haven't tried tracking down any Russian info, because my own research never took me there.

US records typically focused on US ships only, and more or less ignored the other ships in convoy. Unless the Rodina had a US Armed Guard contingency on board (unlikely), the US would not have much details about her.

The only possible source of some additional details might be the National Archives. The Convoy Commodores convoy reports might have some more information, but most likely only states that the ship was sunk.

I have read several articles on the Internet about this convoy, and as best I can remember, the ships were following each other in single file being led by the British minesweeper Niger due to extremely poor weather conditions. The Niger, in looking for navigational aids, misstook a floating iceberg for a point of land, and led the ships into a mine field.

This section of the convoy destined for the USA had separated earlier from the British ships bound for Loch Ewe, Scotland. Captain James Howard Hiss, master of the SS American Robin, was made the commodore of this American section, and his ship missed the mines. On the way to Russia earlier as part of Convoy PQ16 about six ships had been sunk by German planes, and the American Robin, carrying TNT and sailing in "coffin corner" had been dive bombed about two or three times, but escaped with near misses, causing one sailor to try to dive overboard.

I later served on the Liberty ship Martin Van Buren with Captain Hiss, but he never discussed either incident. He of course was still on the Van Buren when it was torpedoed off Halifax, Nova Scotia,in January 1945, but I had previously left the ship.

It appears that after the mine field incident involving the part of Convoy QP13 mentioned, convoys bound for Russia no longer used Iceland as a point of departure but shifted to Loch Ewe.

thanks alot i have now found a picture of one of the ships rodina the russian ship that went down but what i am mostly intrested in is in what order they sank the thing is we have found 4 wrecks with multibeam but we cant identify wich is what though we think we know wich one of them is niger but we really want to try to identify the others so we know what we are looking at

The British minesweeper HMS Hussar, a part of the convoy's escort, was finally able to gain a sight of land and lead the surviving ships out of the minefield. It apparently also towed one of the stricken ships to Scapa Flow. The Hussar was also a Halcyon class minesweeper like the Niger and had served with it for a while in North Russia, sweeping for mines in the Kola Inlet. It was accidentally bombed and sunk by the RAF during the invasion of Normandy. But British naval records may contain information compiled by it during the minefield accident.

most of this i already know but becouse we are seraching for a sertain ship in the convoy couse that is the oone that our sponsors are mostly intrested in we have found 4 wrecks and we are trying to identify them the side scan images we have of them are to blurry to be able to identify the wrecks so we are treying to find out in what order they sank we know that niger was first but then the others we have no idea if we knew this order thay sank in it would help with the identification thanks

Good luck in your search! The only thing I might finally add is that the Niger apparently realized just before hitting a mine and exploding that it was in a minefield and so signalled Captain Hiss, the convoy Commodore on the American Robin, but it was apparently too late to avoid a disaster.

How is your project going? I am currently researching convoys PQ 15 and QP 13 and aim to write a book about them. I have a considerable amount of information on both convoys. Perhaps you could e-mail me with a view to sharing information.